


roadside rarities

by jemejem



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Fluff, Giveaway Fic Prompt!, M/M, Meet-Cute, your car broke down so i gave you a lift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 20:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21343981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemejem/pseuds/jemejem
Summary: The driver clambered out and circled to the hood, wrenching it open. Smoke belched out: He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, slammed the hood shut and moved around to the back to start rolling it out of the way.Andrew rolled his eyes, put on his emergency lights and clambered out of his car to help.(it was a very un-Andrew thing for him to even consider)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 12
Kudos: 320





	roadside rarities

**Author's Note:**

  * For [filteredred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/filteredred/gifts).

Truth be told, Andrew’s banal life was something of a shock. Considering his treacherous past, it was miraculous that he’d made it this far in life. It was miraculous that his life was what it was: Pretty fucking normal. 

He’d been adopted by his juvie counsellor, Betsy Dobson. His brother and cousin had tagged along eventually, when Aaron’s mother overdosed and Nicky’s parents tried to send him to conversion camp for the umpteenth time. It hadn’t been the idealised, formulaic family in those yoghurt commercials, but it was family all the same. 

He’d grown up. Graduated high school. Went to college. Got a degree and a half scholarship. Got a job as a crime analyst and statistician. Moved into a small apartment. Paid off his student loans. Went to his brother’s wedding. Went to his cousin’s wedding. Got a nice car. 

See? He had a normal life. 

These were the things he liked to recite to himself when he was mildly irritated: He would amble through the list of his successes, remind himself everything was alright, and then deal with whatever scenario was presented to him. Like now.

He seemed to be stuck behind an old sedan, which wasn’t moving. He could see that one of the windows was patched up with cardboard and duct-tape, so his hopes for the car being able to miraculously turn back on and continue on its merry way were null and void. 

The driver clambered out and circled to the hood, wrenching it open. Smoke belched out: He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, slammed the hood shut and moved around to the back to start rolling it out of the way. 

Andrew rolled his eyes, put on his emergency lights and clambered out of his car. 

“This looks like you just stole it from the scrap yard,” he remarked, tapping the boot with his fingers. 

The man startled at his presence, looking at him like he was some alien: He had the most brilliant pair of blue eyes Andrew had ever seen, and his cheeks were disfigured with some pretty gruesome scarring, as were his hands and forearms. Under his loose clothes he seemed wiry and muscular, but he was only a few inches taller than Andrew was. 

He fit almost every criteria Andrew had for potential partners, aside from the fact that he was going to make Andrew late for work. The list was long and intricate and ‘needless’, according to Nicky, but Andrew couldn’t stomach the thought of dating someone who didn’t meet every one of his needs. It wasn’t being picky. It was knowing that his fragile past was always a part of him, whether he liked it or not. 

“I didn’t  _ steal  _ it,” The man retorted, staring sullenly at his car. “I fixed it up. And now I’m going to miss the birth of my best friend’s baby, because I’m not a mechanic and had no business trying to salvage it.  _ Shit. _ ”

Christ, this guy was a mess. Andrew threw off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, grounding his feet and planting his hands on the warm metal of the man’s car. 

“What are you doing?” He inquired. 

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Moving your shitty car off the road?”

“Right.” He muttered, joining Andrew. Together they got the monstrous vehicle rolling, and five minutes later it was neatly positioned out of the way. The man stood up, panting, and gave Andrew an appraising look that was so obviously him checking Andrew out that Andrew had to snort. “You’re very strong.”

“Flirt with me another time.” Andrew said, offhandedly. The man’s cheeks coloured at being called out. “Don’t you have a hospital to get to?”

The man cursed, looking at his car. “I’ll never get here on time if I get the tow-truck company to drop me off, and I only have a brick phone: I can’t call a cab.”

“I’ll give you a lift,” Andrew said, because he was hopelessly homosexual and thus far the man was intriguing and gorgeous and just enough of a disaster that Andrew had to help him. 

“I’m Neil,” he blurted. “Neil Josten. You’re very nice.”

Andrew blinked. He’d been called a lot of things in his lifetime. Nice wasn’t one of them. “Are you sure that you weren’t driving yourself to hospital after having a stroke?”

“Sorry,” he rambled, still flustered. “You’re just—I really need that lift. Yes. Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”

“I’m no lifesaver.” Andrew muttered, climbing into the driver’s seat of his car. 

“This is a really nice car,” Neil remarked, hesitant to even put his hands on the smooth leather of the dashboard. “What, are you famous or something?”

“Dear mother’s life insurance.” Andrew grunted. “Which hospital?”

It just had to be the hospital Aaron had just finished his residency at and was now working full time. To be fair, it was the only major hospital in Palmetto. Andrew grit his teeth and kicked the car into gear, flipping off the cars that honked at him for swerving back into traffic without a care. Neil looked over his shoulder as the hunk of scrap metal he called a car drifted out of sight. 

“So, what’s your name?” he asked, drawing a foot up against his chest. Andrew almost flicked his knee to get him to stop: He hated it when people creased the leather. Something in his chest made him ignore it instead. 

“Andrew.”

“Well, Andrew,” Neil smiled, just a little. The scars on his cheek wrinkled, pulling his grin a little sideways. It was warm and endearing and Andrew  _ hated  _ it. “Thank you. Hopefully you’re not too late for work.” 

Andrew just shrugged, turning on the radio and willing the warmth in his cheeks to go away. Neil hummed along with the song, a little out of time, watching the city’s scenery fade away. When they finally pulled into the emergency bay of the hospital—with Andrew fervently hoping his brother or his brother’s wife weren’t nearby to witness him dropping off a devastatingly handsome man to their place of work—Neil looked over at him again. 

“I owe you,” he said, pulling a receipt and a pen out of his pocket. Andrew aptly ignored the way his heart fluttered as Neil wrote down his number, folding it up and tucking it into the breast pocket of Andrew’s button down. He hesitated a moment, before leaning over to graze a small peck on Andrew’s cheek. 

Ten years ago, Andrew would’ve castrated any guy who tried that on him, but Neil’s cautiousness and Andrew’s well-earned growth meant that it was simply an innocent gesture. When he leaned back, he was grinning from ear to ear, and winked (very poorly: Both his eyes and his lips twitched too). “Call me?”

Andrew watched him clamber out of the car, blushing furiously. He most certainly didn’t watch the idiot jog through the hospital doors, slamming his foot on the gas pedal and careening out of the emergency bay. 

So, yeah. Andrew had a pretty normal life. Except for when inexplicable, miraculous moments like that, like Bee’s offer of adoption, like the letter announcing his semi-scholarship for his degree, happened out of nowhere. 

Those were the moments that made Andrew sit back and remind himself that everything was truly, irrevocably, undeniably okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> here u go red!!! i hope i did ur prompt justice <<<3333
> 
> send me prompts on tumblr @jemejem ;;;))


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